which broadband is good and cheap? HELP PLEASE!!!!!

[lucylue]

I would like to know which broadband is good and cheap.
Thanks in advance.
lucy

Funny that cos I love my tiscali broadband. I have never had any problems

Best buys from Which:
Best Buys
Zen Internet 8000 Active

• Price: £24.99
• Score: 85%
• Type: Capped, high-speed service

Capped, high-speed service. Zen received top ratings from its customers almost across the board, although with this package at £24.99 for a 20GB capped service it falls down slightly for value for money. Its 1,000MB of free web space is handy if you want to set up your own web page. Zen only ties you in for a one month at a time, with no cancellation fee if you switch.

Zen Internet 8000 Lite

• Price: £17.99
• Score: 85%
• Type: Capped, high-speed service

Capped, high-speed service. Zen received top ratings from its customers almost across the board, falling down only on value for money. This is Zen's cheapest package, at £17.99, and has a 2GB cap. Its 1,000MB of free web space is handy if you want to set up your own web page. Zen only ties you in for a one month at a time, with no cancellation fee if you switch.

Zen Internet 8000 Pro

• Price: £34.99
• Score: 85%
• Type: Capped, high-speed service

Capped, high-speed service. Zen received top ratings from its customers almost across the board, falling down only on value for money. This is Zen's most expensive package, at £34.99, and has a 50GB cap. Its 1,000MB of free web space is handy if you want to set up your own web page. Zen only ties you in for a one month at a time, with no cancellation fee if you switch.

Waitrose Broadband

• Price: £18.99
• Score: 83%
• Type: Capped, high-speed service

Capped, high-speed service. Waitrose has been a Which? Best Buy since August 2005. Waitrose only offers one broadband package which costs £18.99 a month for an up to 8Mbps service with a cap of 5GB. Waitrose didn't quite hit our maximum for reliability of connection and value for money, but got top marks for everything else. Line activation is free, as is your modem - which you can keep if you switch away. The main downside is the 12 month tie in, but cancellation fees are reasonable. Waitrose has a free technical helpline, which is great if you run into difficulties.

O

And customer satisfaction from Which:
Zen Internet 85%
Waitrose 83%
Global 82%
Madasafish 74%
Utility Warehouse 71%
Nildram 69%
Freedom 2 Surf 66%
Metronet 65%
PlusNet 65%
Eclipse 65%
Force 9 62%
Demon 61%
Tesco 61%
UK Online 60%
Pipex 55%
BT 54%
Sky Broadband 53%
Tiscali 52%
Homecall 50%
ToucanSurf 50%
Virgin Media 49%
Bulldog 48%
Talk Talk 47%
AOL 44%
Supanet 43%
One.Tel 42%
Kingston Communications 41%
Orange 36%

I think it's got something to with the exchange
yurt, we had tiscali ages ago when only ADSL was available, with O2 we get ADSL2+ which is faster, so maybe tiscali would be fine for us now

But their customer service was still a little like wading through quicksand.

I have been pleased with tiscali chiefly because I have found their customer service is fine - and UK call centres

Whereas BT have call centres in Delhi - I got utterly fed up of trying to explain a problem to someone who couldnt understand me and who spoke as if a robot reading from a script

Talktalk been fine for us over the last 18mths. Customer service fine too - and easy to get through (had nightmares with homechoice prev). Think it depends where you live re service. Do check out the Money Saving Expert link, it explains a lot...

(PS we have also actually used talktalk's 40GB cap - hubby's dodgy downloading - so 2 or 4GB limit would be rubbish for us...)

thanks for all your messages
it's been really helpful to me

i checked carphonewarehouse shop today.
they are giving a laptop (acer) if buying broadband. it's 19.99 a month but 2 years deal.
laptop's actual price is 360 pounds they say.
but windows is only trial, where shall i get the licensed one from later?
i will continue my search.
its hard job

nildram is really good - from 11.50 per month (inc 500 free phone mins per month). Their customer service is excellent and you don't have to sign a year's contract like you do with some providers

there is a carphone warehouse shop near me, so i may go for talktalk, if i have any problems i can go to them then, i think.

I never get a UK callcentre when calling Tiscali, except when I called the 'cancellations' department in frustration

Dont go for talktalk we have had them for a year918month contract) and they are the worst ISP we have ever had.

The 1st couple of months were fine then the download speed dropped dramatically from 6-7mb to just under 1mb. It now cuts out intermitently through the day, and sometimes goes off altogether.

When we call their customer service about it they do not listen to what we say and just shift the blame onto someone/something else- BT working on the line, wrong firewalls installed on PC, too many people in the area online at once, rabid seagulls nesting in the exchange.

Absolutely useless IMO!

We switched to O2 about 2 months ago. JHave had no probs.

There price is about £10 for 8Mb if you have a O2 phone, or about £15 if you don't. I am not sure what offers they have on at the moment. We got ours for £7.50/month with free router and 100 day money back gurantee which is superb.

They get prety good ratings if you compare them to teh others here. They are powered by Be* who get ood rankings too.

They are not available to all addresses so link{http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php\check here to see who are available}.

As far as AOL/Talk Talk are concerned. DON'T DO IT. They are pants. There service (which used to be fab) is going tits up and they have no customer service to speak of. I am currently putting in my 2nd written/formal complaint to them.

This has given me the kick I needed to get my broadband switched from BT!

Can't get O2 here so think Sky will probably be the best option for me, especially as then I can get the freeview channels I can't get through the aerial!

my sister doesn't want tv so is thinking of going for tiscali or bt.

Tiscali customer service is most definately NOT uk based. I should know I spent 3 months and over £100 trying vainly to communicate with them. Eventually had to resort to CICAS to sort it out. Everything was fine with them until we tried to add phone service to our broadband package. As I said we were without a phone service and broadband for 3 months because. We did get £500 compensation from them but if I worked it out at an hourly rate for how much time I spent on the phone , emailing them and writing to them it would probably work out to 50p a hour ! I can only think that they have 52% customer satisfaction because they are the people who lose the will to live trying to get through to them to complain and give up. My record for being on hold to them is 45 minutes only to be given another number to ring and, yes you've guessed, be put on hold again! My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it!

With you there kiddiz about their callcentre, I got so wound up I just couldn't bring myself to ring them anymore. Ridiculous how it affected me, took days to get over trying to have a sensible conversation with them.

Found an email form in the end and that worked much better I found.

Which? magazine recommended Utility Warehouse in their last issue for their broadband/phone package...